Page 30 of Hunted Innocence
Nobody answers.
GRAYSON
My phone rings,and I frown at Merrick’s name flashing across my screen. Sliding my thumb across, I hold it to my ear, answering with just a simple statement of my name. He knows who he’s calling, and I highly doubt he’s calling me to chat about just anything, considering I just saw him a couple of hours ago.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
Looking down at the grocery buggy I’m pushing, I flick my gaze back up to the aisleway in front of me so that I don’t hit anyone. “I’m at the grocery store getting shit for Nadine’s place since she cleaned out her whole fridge,” I state.
“Is she with you?”
“Nadine?” I ask
There is a moment of silence, and I swear to fuck my heart completely flops out of my chest and onto the ground in the store. I grip the phone in an effort to keep it from slipping out of my hand, and my next words are said in a hiss.
“What do you mean is she with me?”
He doesn’t say anything immediately, and each second that passes, my heart beats harder and faster inside my chest. The blood in my body starts pumping in my ears, and I can’t help but wonder what the fuck is happening.
Where is she?
And what the fuck is going on?
“I was a little busy in the surveillance room,” he says as he clears his throat, and I can only imagine how he was busy, but I don’t ask, because I’m fucking panicking right now and can’t think. My brain is a jumbled-up mess as I try to make sense of what he’s saying to me.
“I don’t know where she is, but her car is now at Brody’s construction yard.”
I look down at my watch and frown. “It’s six in the evening,” I state. “Nobody is at the yard.”
The construction crew I know for a fact doesn’t work past five, and they’re usually finished by four. They are up early, get their shit done, and go home. They don’t live to work. They work to live and nothing more. Not including whatever the fuck they do on the side, because ATF doesn’t sniff around looking for shit to pin on them if they’re clean.
“But her car is there?”
“Her car is there.”
Pushing the cart over to the side of the aisle, I close my eyes slowly, then reopen them. “Where is Boden?” I ask.
There is a long moment of silence, too fucking long. He should know exactly where Boden is. The fact that he’s taking his sweet fucking time causes my entire body to stiffen. Anger instantly starts to pulse through my veins. It’s replacing the anxiety and panic.
Merrick starts speaking and listing where everyone is located, except it doesn’t make me feel any better as he startsgoing through the list of guys, because none of them are on Nadine.
“Boden got a call for the Willow Club. Hale is still working that job on the coast. Vaughn is at his place. He was up all night doing something personal, and Theron is at home.”
Pressing my lips together, I roll them a few times, trying to calm myself down, attempting to gather my fucking wits about me since I’m in public. The last thing I want to do is completely lose my shit in public and draw undue attention to myself.
“Who was on Nadine?” I ask.
Merrick doesn’t say anything. “I didn’t know she was leaving the office.”
“What the fuck?” I demand. “What the actual fuck?”
What.
The.
Actual.
Fuck.
